bench beautification part 1.

as a kid, i spent hours sitting at my best friend, katie's, dining room table. i can't even begin to tell you how many games of euchre we played at that table. part of the appeal of her family's dining room table was its farmhouse style benches. benches are so much cozier than chairs. it's easy to squish six people onto one side of a table with a bench, whereas a table with chairs could only fit two to three. now that's cozy.

so i added a table with benches to my "when i grow up" wish list. here's the good news: i found a bench!

i stumbled across this homely, yet comfy bench at a local thrift store. it's the perfect size for my modest little table.

let's just say it has a face for radio.

i count at least four different shades of beige on the nasty crap fabric. and all of the shades of beige suck. looks like i have a little project on my hands.

yesterday, in a fit of boredom, i decided to tear this puppy apart.

removing the seat and back cushions from the frame was easy: eight screws and i was done.

and that's the last time i'll use the word 'easy' in reference to this part of the project.

did you know the devil has second job? it's as an upholsterer. and this bench was his pet project.

the top layer of ugly fabric was stapled into a second layer of ugly fabric. usually staples can be removed relatively easily with a screwdriver. but satan managed to staple the fabric with armor-like toughness and then doused the staples in water (but probably not holy water because, you know, king of darkness and whatnot) so they were nice and rusty and had to be pried out with all my might.

proof:

that's blood on my middle finger, a broken pinkie nail and a busted up, snaggled thumb nail. now, i'm sure experienced upholsterers would tell me there are special tools available for this sort of project, however:

a) i don't know what those tools are.
b) i'm too cheap to buy those special tools.
c) i would have to change out of my pajamas at 4:00 pm to go out to buy said tools. and we all know that's not going to happen.

after the cat pee-stained tan fabric was removed, i was left with this equally disgusting plaid fabric to remove:

the staples used to secure this fabric proved even more antagonistic. after many more tears, bloody fingers and swear words, i was left with this:

stripped, dirty fabric scraps. you guys, just LOOK at how gross it is. now picture the smell.

this is just a small sample of the 401,293,847 staples i removed. and don't judge my dirty floor. the bible says he without a dirty floor casts the first stone. right?

it took me roughly two hours to remove the staples. i quickly sanded the wood frame before calling it a day.

right now, the fabric-free cushions are airing out in the garage while the old fabric rests peacefully in the garbage can (note: i did keep one layer of fabric from the back and the seat to use as a template for the new fabric).

my plan is to spend as little money as possible on this project, per usual. the bench was $15.00 during a half-off sale. i'm tentatively planning on using a canvas painter's cloth as my fabric of choice and painting the oak pieces white. again, tentative is the key word here.

do you use benches in place of chairs at your dining room table? have you reupholstered a bench before? any words of wisdom for me?